The city of Berlin wants to give away the villa of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi regime’s Minister of Propaganda, for free. The villa has been a burden for the state for years: it is expensive to maintain, difficult to sell, and demolition is not an obvious option.
Goebbels’ villa is located on a lake on a vast estate of 17 hectares. The Nazi minister received the land in 1936. He had a huge mansion built there, with money from the Nazi film production company UFA, over which he was lord and master. Goebbels entertained Nazi leaders, celebrities and mistresses in the building.
In the 1950s, a training center for the youth organization of the East German Communist Party was built on the same site. The ‘Villa Goebbels’ itself was used as a supermarket and daycare at the time.
Second Life
However, according to German media, the costs for security and maintenance run into millions of euros every year. The state of Berlin has been trying to find a second life for it for years.
Selling is not an option, because there are fears that the estate would “fall into the wrong hands” and “become a place of pilgrimage for Nazis”. Demolition is also not an obvious option, because it is classified as a historic monument.
Berlin Finance Minister Stefan Evers wants to give the villa away for free. “I offer the property to anyone who wants it, as a gift from the state of Berlin,” Evers said Thursday in the Berlin House of Representatives.
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Adolf Hitler en Joseph Goebbels — © © World History Archive